Form and variability during sit-to-stand transitions: children versus adults

In performing the sit-to-stand transition, young children (6- to 7-year-olds) were expected to display a movement form similar to that of adults. However, movement consistency was predicted to be poorer in children than in adults because they lack refinement of motor control processes. Kinematic analysis of 10 repetitions of the sit-to-stand movement was carried out for 6 typically developing children and 6 adults. Supporting the authors' prediction of comparable form, no differences were evident between age groups for sequence of joint onsets, proportional duration of segmental motion, or in angle-angle plots of displacement at 2 segments. In contrast, within-participant variability was found to be higher for children: Coefficients of variation for most kinematic measures were twice those seen for adults. The authors interpret the children's lack of movement consistency as a reflection of inadequate stabilization of an internal model of intersegmental dynamics. Whereas adults have attained a skill level associated with refinement of that model, children have not. Children have an additional control problem because changes in body morphology throughout childhood require ongoing updating of the internal model that controls intrinsic dynamics.     

Structural characteristics of clause-containing sentences and imitation by children and adults

Children of ages 4, 6, and 8 years and college students attempted to imitate sentences containing combinations of nested and self-embedded relative clauses. Asymmetries in performance predicted from extensions of previous research were obtained at all ages. The hypothesis that these differences might be attributable to two structural characteristics of clause-containing sentences was supported by correlational analyses.This report is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Washington.     

Latency and accuracy characteristics of saccades and corrective saccades in children and adults

Accuracy and latency characteristics of the first saccade to a target together with the frequency and latency of corrective saccades were studied in children (mean age = 8.5) and adults. The independent variables manipulated were fixation-light offset to target-light onset warning interval (0 and 300 msec) and the presence and location of nontarget stimuli. Although saccade accuracy was significantly affected by nontarget lights, children could respond as accurately as adults and, in replication of previous findings, as quickly when a 300 msec warning interval was given. No speed-accuracy trade off was found for either group as a function of the warning signal condition. Children were as likely to make corrective saccades as adults, but did so with a significantly longer latency. Corrective saccade latencies were greater when a change in direction was required but this effect did not interact with age.     

Personality traits and sibling relationships in emerging adults

Associations between the Big Five personality traits of siblings and the quality of sibling relationships were examined in a sample of 115 college students and one of their older siblings. Big Five traits, as assessed by Goldberg's 100 adjective markers, predicted a large amount of the variability in sibling Warmth and Conflict. Agreeableness was the most consistent predictor of positive sibling outcomes.     

Individual characteristics and personal relationships

The nature of a personal relationship depends in part on the characteristics of the participating individuals. Yet the relations between individual characteristics and relationships are complex because (i) there are difficulties in specifying the dimensions along which individuals differ; (ii) the characteristics that an individual displays vary with the situation; (iii) relationships have properties that result from interaction between the participants; and (iv) the mechanisms whereby individual Characteristics affect relationships are diverse. In this paper the first three of these issues are discussed briefly and a number of examples of the fourth are provided.     

Pictorial representations in adults and children

Reaction time to make same-object judgements was measured for pairs of identical pictures, picture synonyms, identical words, word synonyms, and picture-word combinations in adults and children. At all ages, synonym comparisons took longer than identical comparisons. Adults, but not children responded no faster to picture-word pairs than to picture synonym pairs. This is taken as evidence for the use of abstract pictorial information by adults but not by children. Children seem to compare two different exemplars of the same object verbally in the absence of well-integrated abstract pictorial representations.     

Sequential pointing in children and adults

The development of visuomotor control in sequential pointing was investigated in 6- to 10-year-old children and in adults. In 3 experiments we manipulated task difficulty by changing the number, the size, and the spacing of the targets in the sequences. In Experiment 4, only 1 movement was required; we varied independently the distance between targets and the distance of the starting point from the participant's body. Children's temporal and spatial parameters of the motor sequences showed large age-dependent trends, but did not reach the adult values. Comparison of performance across levels of difficulty and ages suggests that motor development is not a uniform fine-tuning of stable strategies. Instead, we argue that each stage of development is best characterized by the set of strategic components potentially available at that stage, and by the (age-dependent) rules for the selection of components in a given context.     

Global gist extraction in children and adults

The DRM paradigm was used to examine the role of global gist extraction in producing false memories in children and adults. First-graders, third-graders, and adults watched a videotape of a woman reading seven DRM lists, and then took a recognition memory test. Blocked (vs random) presentation and instructions to attend to the theme of lists were manipulated to enhance gist processing. In the first experiment, blocked presentation increased false recognition relative to random presentation in adults but not in first-graders or third-graders. In the second experiment, instructions to attend to list themes increased false recognition in third-graders and not in adults or first-graders. The results suggest a developmental pattern in which children become more adept at global gist extraction as they get older. These results are consistent with fuzzy trace theory's prediction of better gist processing as children grow older.     

Skin temperature biofeedback in children and adults

Skin temperature biofeedback performance was studied in 38 children, ages 6 to 10, and 38 of their parents, across two sessions of audio biofeedback segments in which the participants alternately attempted hand-warming and hand-cooling. Skin temperature from each hand was monitored throughout, but only one hand at a time was in the feedback loop. The major finding was that children were superior to adults in controlling skin temperature in the presence of biofeedback (p < .001). Adults showed no skin temperature control. For children, temperature changes were greater for the hand in the feedback loop as compared to the contralateral hand (p < .001). Children were equally successful in increasing and decreasing skin temperature. The results are consistent with earlier studies and suggest that children have considerable potential for neuropsychological self-regulation.     

Non-symbolic arithmetic in adults and young children

Five experiments investigated whether adults and preschool children can perform simple arithmetic calculations on non-symbolic numerosities. Previous research has demonstrated that human adults, human infants, and non-human animals can process numerical quantities through approximate representations of their magnitudes. Here we consider whether these non-symbolic numerical representations might serve as a building block of uniquely human, learned mathematics. Both adults and children with no training in arithmetic successfully performed approximate arithmetic on large sets of elements. Success at these tasks did not depend on non-numerical continuous quantities, modality-specific quantity information, the adoption of alternative non-arithmetic strategies, or learned symbolic arithmetic knowledge. Abstract numerical quantity representations therefore are computationally functional and may provide a foundation for formal mathematics.     

Hierarchical forms processing in adults and children

Two experiments examined child and adult processing of hierarchical stimuli composed of geometric forms. Adults (ages 18-23 years) and children (ages 7-10 years) performed a forced-choice task gauging similarity between visual stimuli consisting of large geometric objects (global level) composed of small geometric objects (local level). The stimuli spatial arrangement was manipulated to assess child and adult reaction times and predisposition toward local or global form categorization under two distinct trial conditions, with varied density of the local forms comprising the global forms. In Experiment 1, children and adults were presented with common, simple geometric shape hierarchical forms composed of ovals and rectangles. In Experiment 2, adults were presented with hierarchical forms composed of the simple geometric shapes, ovals and rectangles, and additional novel complex geometric shapes, “posts” and “arches.” Results show a clear increase of global processing bias across the age ranges of the individuals in the study, with children at 10 years performing similarly to adults on the simple stimuli. In addition, adults presented with the novel complex geometric shapes showed a significant reduction in global processing bias, indicating that form novelty and complexity lead to additional attention to local features in categorization tasks.     

Feature binding in children and young adults

The authors measured memory for individual features (objects only or locations only) and the combination of those features (objects and locations) in 9-, 12-, and 21-year-old students with a yes or no recognition task. Analysis of recognition memory performance (d' scores) revealed that although age differences existed in memory for individual features, age differences were greater in the tasks that required memory for combined features (objects and locations). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that age remained a significant predictor of memory performance in the combination condition even after the authors statistically removed memory performance in object and location conditions and the interaction effects of object and location. These results provide evidence for developmental differences in the binding of features in memory.     

Excuse inference modification in children and adults

The ability of first- and third-grade children and college adults to make excuse inferences about a speaker's use of an utterance and to modify those inferences appropriately upon receiving later information was examined in four experiments. Short stories containing an utterance by a speaker were read aloud. Utterances in the story were preceded by contextual information that suggested either that the speaker was truthful or making an excuse. Utterances were followed by information that confirmed or disconfirmed the excuse interpretation. The results of Experiment 1 indicated that even first and third graders can make excuse inferences, but these children rarely modify these interpretations upon receiving disconfirming information. In Experiments 2–4 possible reasons for the children's interpretive inflexibility were examined by varying the difficulty of relating the excuse interpretation and succeeding information. Results suggested processing difficulty, as well as an interpretive “set,” contributed to the children's inflexibility.     

Lexical search speed in children and adults

The retrieval of words from lexical memory was investigated in kindergartners (Age 6), first-graders (Age 7), third-graders (Age 9), and adults. A lexical decision task with auditorily presented words and nonwords was used, with decision latency as the dependent variable. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine the effects of word frequency, age of word acquisition, and number of word meanings. Results showed that word frequency contributed to decision latency for all age groups, age of word acquisition contributed to all groups but the third-grade subjects, and number of word meanings did not contribute for any age group. Results are discussed in relation to a model of the lexicon in children and adults. It is suggested that factors from the external linguistic community are internalized in the lexicon at an early age.     

Memorial consequences of imagination in children and adults

Recent work with adults suggests that imagination can impair later recall of previously encoded events but can improve recall of subsequently encoded events. The present study examined the memorial consequences of imagination in children. Kindergartners, first and fourth graders, and young adults studied two successively presented lists of items. Between the two lists, participants were given an imagination task supposed to create a change in mental context. As expected, in adults, the imagination task impaired recall of the previously encoded material (List 1) and improved recall of the subsequently encoded material (List 2). In children, significant List 1 impairment was present from first grade on, but even fourth graders failed to show improvement for List 2. The results challenge a purely context-based explanation of the memorial costs and benefits of imagination. Instead, they suggest that the two effects are mediated by different mechanisms with different developmental trajectories.     

Levels of experienced dimensionality in children and adults

This work presents a new conceptualization of the contrast between holistic and differentiated perception of multidimensional stimuli. Specifically, two hypotheses about the experiential status of dimensions within holistic perception are proposed and tested as explanations of young children's general perceptual mode and adults' integral mode. The major result is that three levels of dimensional status are realized: (1) the hypothesis of nonprimary axes characterizes adult “integral” perception of saturation and brightness relations, (2) the hypothesis of primary but not mandatory axes characterizes kindergarteners' “integral” perception of size and shade relations, and (3) the notion of mandatory axes characterizes adults' separable perception of size and shade relations. These results indicate a new interpretation of the integrality-separability distinction and the derivative developmental hypothesis. It is specifically hypothesized that the developmental history of most dimensional combinations includes these three levels.     

Pictorial detail and recall in adults and children

Relatively little research has been done on the role of pictorial detail in memory, and the data that do exist are ambiguous. The issue is important because it touches on our understanding of basic issues such as encoding elaboration and trace distinctiveness. The present study attempts to extend our data base by testing recall of words, outlines, and detailed drawings in third graders, sixth graders, and adults. For a categorized set of items, specific comparisons showed that recall of both detailed drawings and outlines was superior to that of words but that these did not differ from one another. For an uncategorized set of items, specific comparisons showed that outlines were recalled significantly better than pictures and that both of these were recalled better than words. The finding of an advantage in recall for outlines over detailed drawings was quite surprising. A variety of explanations may be offered, but true understanding of this effect will depend on future research.     

Personality characteristics of dyslexic and nondyslexic adults

Dyslexic persons have developmental abnormalities in reading, writing, speech, or more than one area. To study differences in personality characteristics 25 each dyslexic and nondyslexic men and women, ranging in age from 21 to 73 years, completed the 300-word Adjective Check List. Analysis indicated significant differences between the two groups on 15 of 37 adjectives. Dyslexic men scored significantly lower than nondyslexic men on the Favorable Adjectives checked, Achievement, Dominance, Intraception, Heterosexuality, Self-confidence, Personal Adjustment, Ideal Self, and Military Leadership scales, and they scored significantly higher than nondyslexic men on the Adapted Child scale. Nondyslexic women scored significantly higher than dyslexic women on the Counseling Readiness and the High Origence/High Intellectence scales and significantly lower on the Nurturance, Nurturing Parent, and Feminine Attributes scales.     

Identity configurations across love and work in emerging adults in romantic relationships

Love and work constitute two life-defining identity domains for emerging adults. The present study utilized a five-dimensional identity model and examined identity configurations across these two domains, capturing the degree to which identity statuses correspond across domains. A sample of German 18–30-year-olds who were either working or studying and engaged in a romantic relationship was assessed at baseline and three years later. Six identity clusters emerged in each domain. Combining identity clusters across love and work domains, 7 identity configurations were distinguished. Whereas some configurations were characterized by strong commitments in one or both domains, other configurations consisted of individuals scoring low on commitment and high on exploration and rumination. These configurations were differentially related to psychological symptoms, work stress and satisfaction, and family–work conflict, both concurrently and longitudinally. Individuals characterized by high commitments in love and work provided the most favorable responses on all outcomes.